Sunday, March 2, 2014

Mostly fussy and unadorned

Last December, I read this article about jewelry and about what styles we each like – the author has pulled together what she calls a sort of Myers-Briggs profile, only for jewelry. Based on the article, I’m fairly fussy and fully unadorned. In fact, I think my fussiness comes from how unadorned I prefer to be. That’s not to say I don’t like jewelry or don’t wear it because that’s not the case. It’s more that the jewelry I do wear is more pared down, and generally simpler. You would never call my jewelry blingy, although I do appreciate bling – on others.

The same thing can be said about my clothing. I’ve finally realized that what draws me to a particular piece of clothing is not so much the design but the fabric. I’ve bought some really not so great pieces, all because I love the fabric so much.

I got this material from Fabric Mart probably two years ago from the first year we belonged to Julie’s Picks. What I like about Julie’s Picks is that I can not only see the fabric but touch it. This is a Marc Jacobs brushed wool and it’s black with an almost twilight/cobalt blue pattern to it. It feels absolutely amazing.

At first, I thought I would make this Marcy Tilton coat. But take a look at it – there are a lot of fairly blingy features in this coat and I know myself. I’d feel really weird wearing something with all those design features, or else I’d leave out most of them. Then I found this Vogue coat – perfect for me. All I needed was coat lining and courage. The coat lining was easy – I got it from the Chicago Vogue Fabric Store (whatever did we do before the Internet?).

La Sewista just finished making an amazing cashmere coat. She made a comment about the pattern she chose – she said it was rather like a bathrobe. Well her pattern isn’t exactly the same as mine but it’s pretty darn close. And I can make a bathrobe, I've done it before several times. So I found my courage.

I cut it out yesterday using my painfully dull scissors. The wool is really thick and it was difficult to cut, and my scissors didn’t help. I tried my Fiskars and they were wretched. So I turned to the scissors you see here. The ones on the left are a pair of Wiss scissors I bought when I was 19. They cost $30 which was a lot of money for me then, and they’ve been worth it. But that was – yikes – 1979 and they need to be sharpened. The pair on the right are made by Marks and are from my grandmother. They also need to be sharpened. But I got through the ordeal, not without some swearing I will confess. And today I started sewing.

I’m about halfway done and so far, it’s going well. My secret hope is that I finish the coat and warm weather magically arrives and I don’t need it again until next November. Hey, a girl can dream.